


a final goodbye

by kakashi_mole



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Sad, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakashi_mole/pseuds/kakashi_mole
Summary: Sal and Ash say goodbyeContains spoilers for Sally Face Episode 5.
Relationships: Ashley Campbell/Sal Fisher
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	a final goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a final scene between Sal and Ash. Even if it was to say goodbye.

Her body shook as she got to her feet. The battle was won and the remnants of the chaos laid around her. The smell of burning wood smothered the air. Ash was able to help Todd stand, leading him to a broken boulder where he could sit and rest. Blood was still on him. It smeared onto her and she rubbed her palms against her jeans.  


“Ash?”  


The voice of Sal came from beyond the wreckage.  


She called out, but there was no answer. Ash assured Todd that she would be right back, and then she made her way up the hill, climbing over collapsed stone, sidestepping the charred remains of wood and singed cloth. Sal’s voice came again, repeating her name. Ash coughed against the smoke, waving her hand in front of her face. She came upon the intact remnants of the church’s stained glass window. Miraculously, or by bizarre chance, the glass had not shattered. It depicted a scene from the New Testament, a dove descending upon a flowing river.  


She scoffed under her breath. The Poor Man’s Bible had been a farce all along, hiding Evil within the church walls. As Ashley drew closer, the light from the rising sun angled itself in such a way that the windows sparkled, glowing and sending prisms of color across the destroyed church.  


There was a shadowy outline of a figure behind the stained glass.  


“Sal?” Ashley asked. She couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped her voice. The shadowy figure startled, then shuddered like static.  


“Ash?”  


“Oh my god,” she said, walking faster as she rounded the corner.  


It was him, exactly as she had left him more than five years ago. His hair was long and unkempt. The knees of his jeans were ripped. The edges of his sneakers worn and dirty. A scar, barely noticeable, flashed white on his neck. The prosthetic face was the same, all too familiar. It was like a punch to the gut and a gentle kiss to the lips all at once, and without hesitating, she threw her arms around him.  


It was real. He did not fade. What she held onto was real and tangible and warm.  


“I can’t stay long.”  


Ash pulled away, holding onto his shoulders. The blood that was on her hands had smeared onto him.  


“Do you mean you’re fading out? Where are you going? What’s going on?”  


Her breaths came in rapid short bursts, her nails digging into his shoulders.  


It was real, he was actually here, she could feel it. The bones of his shoulders against her hands, the familiar smell, the way she had learned to tell what he was feeling by the change of light in his one good eye.  


That eye changed now. It became softer, sadder.  


“Jim. Larry’s dad. He said he could bring me back, into a physical form. But it’s just atoms and dust, carbon and hydrogen and— Weird cosmic shit I can’t explain. Listen—” Sal took a deep breath. He lifted his hands and held onto Ashley’s arms. “I don’t have much time. He could only bring me back here for a little bit.”  


“How long?”  


“Two minutes. Maybe three at most.”  


Ash laughed bitterly, shaking her head. She looked to her left, at the rising sun. Its light was so sweet, so kind, and yet…  


She grasped at Sal’s shoulders tighter, nearly shaking him. She opened her mouth to speak but felt herself at a loss of words.  


“Then what?” she whispered.  


“I think…I think I’ll go into the dark, and turn into nothing.”  


There was a hint of a smile in his eye. He shrugged.  


“It can’t be that bad,” he continued. “I bet it’s like going to sleep—“  


“Don’t say that,” Ash said. She pulled him into another hug, but it was desperate. She could feel the sun rising higher, she could feel time passing, and with it, she could feel Sal Fisher slipping from her fingers.  


When she pulled away, his physical form was lighter, more translucent. Her bloodied hands were frantic. She touched at his mask, reached for his hands, a succession of words spilling from her mouth. She rushed to tell him everything.  


“Gizmo’s fine, I mean, he’s not happy, I think he’s depressed. He doesn’t eat as much as he used to, and he sleeps all the time. I can take care of him. And your room is the same. Our spot by the lake is the same, but this year the wildflowers didn’t bloom. You know, the blue ones, that hang like bells? And I kept everything. Your photos, all the keepsakes. Everything you made, everything we made together too. The mix CDs, the art, the video games. All the—”  


She took a deep, shuddering breath, tears brimming her eyes. “All the little things, all of it, it meant the world to me.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.  


“Sally, I—”  


Sal’s muffled voice began, then halted. Ash’s hands were at the back of his head, undoing the straps from his mask. Her hands were shaking. There was a flurry of their arms tangling into each other as he reached behind his head, trying to help, bumping closer into her as her voice cried out, quietly, “You’re fading so quick.”  


The mask came off, the ends of his hair tangled into its straps. Ash was pressed into him, so close now that he could feel her heartbeat against his chest, could feel her body’s movements, smell her familiar scent of cherry perfume. It washed over him as she gently freed his hair from the mask’s straps. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her waist, and exhaled heavily, realizing how tensely he had been holding his breath.  


Ash’s arms were around him again. He felt the cool morning air against his bare face, felt the breeze come over him like some long-ago voice. The sky above opened like a woman’s arms, his mother’s arms, and he felt a smile come over him, believing truly that it was okay now, it was okay to let go, to fade into nothingness.  


A fleeting memory came to him. A long time ago, back when they were in high school, Ashley and him were up in the treehouse, sharing a pair of stereo-headphones and listening to a song that plucked away like falling snowflakes.  


Outside the night was freezing cold. Sheets of black ice covered the roads. Above, the sky was clear enough to map out every starry constellation. It was so pretty it made his heart hurt. They laid there on the cold wooden floor, shoulder to shoulder, pressed close. The right headphone was against his ear, the left headphone against her’s. The sides of their faces pressed against each other. 

The prosthetic mask laid next to him. He wanted to put it back on. He wanted the song to be over so he could make an excuse, to get up and put the mask back on, but she was staring up at the ceiling, her lips forming silent words.  


Out of nowhere she had started crying. It was so quiet that he didn’t hear it, but he felt the warm trickle of her tears touch his scarred cheek. Sal went still, his breath leaving a cloud into the cold air.  


“What’s wrong?” He pulled the headphones off and set them aside. He rolled over, propping himself up onto his elbow.  


Ash made a face at him, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. She turned away, quickly using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe away her tears.  


“This song,” she sniffed. She tried laughing it off, but there was still something so delicate about her voice, as though she were about to break at any moment. “It makes me so sad, but in a way, it makes me so, so happy to be alive.”  


Sal smiled. When he realized she was looking at him, he ducked his head, using the crook of his arm to cover his face while he reached out for his mask.  


“No, don’t,” she said hushed. She placed her hand lightly over his own. “I like seeing your smile.”  


Sal closed his eyes and shook his head. Past memories of him standing in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at his reflection, came flashing across his mind.  


Standing in front of the mirror, shirtless and skinny, practicing his crooked smile. The muscle would not work, the corner of his mouth sagged. The longer he practiced smiling the more he felt like a liar.  


He was already putting the mask on his face when the song changed. The melody went from quiet, somber guitar plucks, to a rough shred that sizzled.  


He did not know why he did this— maybe it was because school was out for winter break and they were free for a little while, or maybe it was because the song had changed into something courageous, or maybe it was because the stars were so clear and so bright, and his friend was lying there, a certain aliveness to her glistening green eyes that made him scarcely believe he was lucky enough to be next to her— he did not think it through, but he held his breath, leaned down, and placed the lips of his prosthetic mask against her’s. He opened his eyes and saw that she was staring right at him. Sal pulled back, his hands on either side of her head, his arms shaking from both the cold and from shock. The tip of her nose was bright red and a strand of her long brown hair was stuck to her mouth. Her eyes widened.  


“Holy shit,” she said.  


“Oh fuck,” he muttered, veering back as fast as possible. “I don’t know why I—”  


“Shit.”  


“Fuck.”  


Sal laid on his back. He covered his eyes with the palms of his hands. Neither of them moved or spoke.  


“This is kind of embarrassing,” he said, placing his arms stiffly by his side. He felt like a corpse, dead of embarrassment, a wave of heat rising over his entire body.  


Ash wiggled her arm between them and took hold of his hand. They laid like that, the muffled sound of the music coming from the headphones; beyond them, the occasional crunch of car tires going over ice on the road, the whirr of a commercial jet flying across the winter sky, the creak of the old wooden treehouse. He knew he was going to miss her when the time came, whenever that would be. She was smart and would undoubtedly be college-bound. He looked at the drawings she had made, now taped to the treehouse walls.  


“I am not going to let you forget this Sally Face.”  


And he was glad she wouldn’t.  


And that’s all there was to it, he thought, the whole existence thing— fleeting memories and days gone by, all the times he had felt pain, and all the times he felt love too, rushing from his fading corporeal form into the arms of the girl so dear to him.  


Sal pulled back and placed the mask into her hands. A soft murmur came from her throat, a tremble to her bottom lip as she looked at it, then back up at him.  


“Keep it,” he insisted.  


Ash reached behind her head, struggling to unclasp the black choker around her neck. Her hands were still shaking and a terrible weight was in her stomach, because even though the sunlight was beautiful, even though a great victory had been won, the ebb and flow of time was washing over him. She had so much to say— he looked older, he looked tired. She wanted to say that he seemed afraid, she wanted to tell him that she would take care of anything, of everything. That she was sorry, and at the same time, glad that it had been this way.  


Even if it had been for a little while.  


She held the choker out to him. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, even without the mask on, but his good eye told everything. His mouth formed the words ‘thank you’ as he took the necklace, but she was already holding him again, burying her face into his neck.  


The sky was a hazy pink now. Sparrows flittered across the sky, and he screwed his eyes tight, expecting the end to come.  


Ash pulled free from his grip. She leaned forward, her face brushing against his as she kissed him on the mouth. He watched her do this, watched her close her eyes and press her lips against him. He kept tense at first, and then feeling his physical form deteriorate, relaxed into her warmth, her smell, her softness, into the lips that had smiled, that had defended her truth, which had lent him words of support. He let go, and kissed her in return.  


Ash wanted it to be slow, but time was short, and so she had to feel her way through the kiss, placing her hands on his shoulders, then onto his neck, her thumb caressing the rigid scars lining his face, the permanent indent in his jaw, the way his flesh was like a map of his being— mountains, valleys, rivers flowing into his blue eyes. The mask she held in her hand pressed into his head awkwardly, and so she lowered it, leaning deeply into the kiss, opening her mouth and pressing fervently, hoping he knew what she meant by it.  


She pulled back, a little weak-kneed, a strange mixture of hope, joy, sadness, and loss flashing across her eyes.  


“Sorry. I meant to do that awhile ago.”  


She glanced at the sun. Her voice cracked.  


“Oh, it’s too late to explain when I wanted to do that Sally Face. There’s too much to say, I—”  


“I think I know when,” he said.  


She blinked, placing her hand on his face.  


“What do I do now?”  


His image was becoming translucent.  


There wasn’t time. He kissed her again, and she was trying to talk, her mouth forming words against his. His form, his very being, faded into the light, leaving behind the reflected colors of the stained glass window. He didn’t close his eyes this time. This time, he watched as the world faded away.  


“Sal, I-”  


She realized there was nothing in front of her.  


For a moment, she didn’t believe he was gone. Then she looked all around, and couldn’t believe he was gone. Ashley Campbell dropped to her knees, the mask in her hands now a piece of memory.  


Beyond, out in the wide open fields near the edge of the lake, the blue wildflowers began to bloom.


End file.
